Listening post of a diplomat down under

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The new US consul-general didn't think twice when offered the
chance to move from Baghdad, writes Gerard Noonan.

He has the renowned jazz trumpeter Miles Davis's Kind of
Blue on his CD player and takes a keen interest in sampling
fine Australian wines and cheeses.

As an antidote to the endless stream of emails and faxes from
Washington, he indulges in detective stories which he calls "police
procedurals".

Meet Stephen Smith, the new US consul-general to Sydney and most
recently the chief of staff to the former American proconsul in
Iraq, Paul Bremer.

Smith is arguably the second-most important representative of
the superpower in the country after the outgoing US ambassador, Tom
Schieffer.

But he's smoother and professionally more discreet than the
loud-talking Texan mate of the US President, George Bush, who
frequently criticised Labor policy and backed the Coalition
Government on issues such as the Iraq invasion and the US-Australia
trade agreement.

A career US State Department official, Smith was in the heat of
Baghdad last year on what he calls a "temporary assignment" when
another key aide to Bremer was appointed to the Sydney post. But
the Arabic-speaking colleague, a Middle Eastern specialist, was
wooed to stay on in Iraq.

"They created a new office - The Office of Iraq Affairs - and
asked him to come back to head that office. The professional thrill
of that overpowered Sydney [for him]," Smith says.

"Well, I was there, so it was very much a serendipitous thing.
The No. 2 human resources person was in Baghdad at the time and
asked whether I'd like my name put up to the committee which
decides these things - it took about five seconds."

Smith is looking forward to life in Sydney - which he insists is
no R&R post after Baghdad, though he says the contrast with the
beleaguered city is profound.

The US's Sydney operation, on the 59th floor of the MLC building
in central Sydney, is the largest consular office, combining a
significant commercial role with the normal consular duties such as
dealing with lost passports, deaths or scrapes with the law
involving US citizens visiting Australia.

"There is a very big consular representation in Sydney - next
only to New York," he says. "It started off to be the person who
could give visas, and sign sailors on and off ships and take care
of people who died and whose bodies had to be repatriated. But now
the visa function has been hived off from the consular-general
role. Since September 11 [2001], that's become a very closely
watched, careful process by all countries."

Smith sees his role as a listening post for views about the US
and for what his patch of Australia is up to. "I report back to
Washington on the views we hear of the NSW Government," he says.
"The genius of diplomacy really is human contact. For a while in
the '70s and '80s we were seduced by satellites going over and
being able to take photographs of crops and so on ... you could
tell all kinds of stuff.

"There is [still] an aspect of that, but it's the
people-to-people connection that makes things work. We're social
animals and that's how we find out things and learn things."

Smith says he's encountered quite a lot of reaction from people
in Sydney to US policy in Iraq, though he suggests it's not
aggressive or overly antagonistic.

"You betcha, I'm hearing lots of views. But no, it's a much more
gentlemanly discussion than that."

And despite what he says is a rather critical anti-American tone
to much reporting of US reaction to the tsunami disaster, he says
Australians he has met have been quite supportive of the US
role.

"We understand that you guys have contributed $1 billion but the
people I talk to understand that we've got 15,000 defence personnel
in place assisting and ships positioned off various coasts
providing support. We may not match the exact amounts being
contributed but we're doing it in kind."

As a senior US State Department official close to the mandatory
retirement age of 65, Smith's three-year posting to Sydney is
expected to be his last.

Before Sydney and Baghdad, he'd worked in Washington and
throughout the Middle East. Serving in the US Navy, and in the US
Peace Corps in Afghanistan, before joining the diplomatic service,
Smith has undertaken various management and personnel positions in
Jordan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iran and Egypt.

One earlier task provided him with at least some experience for
the role he undertook in Baghdad - essentially to turn the office
of a military occupier into a US ambassadorial structure.

In the early 1990s he headed US efforts to set up new embassies
in the dozen or so countries created by the collapse of the former
Soviet Union.

"In many places the concept of renting a building was an alien
concept," he said. "Setting up security, co-ordinating from
Washington and finding places for embassy staff to live as there
were no housing markets in places like Belarus or Kazakhstan or
Turkmenistan ... it was quite something."

Talk of housing markets will be one thing the new US
consul-general will find difficult to avoid in Sydney.